The Tools of the Trade(s)

“How do you know what a chuck key is?”

The man in charge of the tool shed looked me over with amusement and something like wonder. I had an old-school corded drill in hand and needed to change the bit. My own corded drill has a chuck key that fits in the handle (yeah, I still keep it around), but this one was even older. I was a volunteer on a sacred building project, a job sure to generate good karma—unless you perform the work while enraged. I measured my tone to the low flat growl that everyone in my family knows means trouble.

“My grandmother taught me.”

That is not precisely true, but she did give me my first real toolbox for my seventh birthday, shiny red and hand-engraved with my initials by her Dremel tool. It contained a crescent wrench, pliers, two kinds of screwdrivers, two kinds of hammers, a measuring tape, a square with a level, and a selection of hardware. Ironically, most of the tools were made by Craftsman.

My encounter with The Male Gaze in the Tool Shed happened 25 years ago but could easily happen today. The guy was not wrong (see The Big Lebowski to complete this sentence). The data tells us most people presenting as female likely do not know what a chuck key is, or what it is for. Women and non-binary people represent no more than 3% of workers in the trades, and many who have chosen that path are leaving it due to bias and harassment. Yet these fields—mechanics, framing, plumbing, electrical, etc.— pay living wages, do not require an expensive college education, and offer a path to independence that rivals anything the information economy can offer. Combine these benefits with the exciting developments in alternative, planet-saving construction methods and energy production and you have a recipe for a meaningful, lucrative career.

At a minimum, having trade skills under your belt means you always have a source of income. I watched my own kiddo gain tremendous strength and confidence when they upped their trade skill-set. I know a young, career mathematician who worked his way through college building stuff, a skill he learned from his dad. I spent more than one of my youthful summers painting houses, a skill I learned from my mother. We need more contractors like the one I worked for, who not only hired me as a painter but taught me how to cut and set tile. I would have kept working for him, but he was able to leverage his successful business into a career change as a watercolor instructor leading guided art tours of the desert. He knew he could fall back on his other skills if it didn't work out.

The Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine” is a great track (thanks, Barbie), but the one running through my head from that album goes “Gotta get outta bed, get a hammer and a nail/ Learn how to use my hands...” I can’t improve upon that. As the song says, “Gotta tend the Earth if you want a rose.”